The present disclosure relates to a transporting device for transporting a laboratory diagnostic vessel carrier.
Laborsaving for examination work in the medical field has recently proceeded by introducing diverse automated devices. For example, for testing in a hospital, the samples of inpatients and outpatients are collected from several sections of the hospital and collectively processed in an examination room. Test items for each sample are sent from doctors to the examination room by use of an online information processing system. Test results are then reported online from the examination room to the doctors. For many of test items on blood or urine, pretreatment for testing needs to be performed such as centrifugal process, unplugging, dispensing, and the like. It takes much time for engagement in such pretreatment work in total testing working hours.
Next, the flow of a process to be performed by a general automated sample testing system is described. A vessel such as test tube that holds a body fluid such as blood collected from a patient is held by a vessel carrier. Such vessel carriers are known. The vessel carrier holding the vessel such as the test tube is loaded into the general automated sample testing system. Barcode information of the loaded sample is read in the system so that the sample type is recognized. As described above, the centrifugal process, unplugging, dispensing, and the like are performed as the pretreatment for the test process.
The contents of the pretreatment vary depending on the sample type, for example, for a urine test, the centrifugal process does not need to be performed. A sample type that needs to be subjected to the centrifugal separation is a sample on which the unplugging and dispensing are performed after centrifugal separation. The dispensing process usually known as aliquoting is a process in which a child sample is generated from a parent sample. For example, dispensed child samples can be simultaneously transported to multiple analyzers that are connected to the system online. A sample that is completed with all processes is stored in a storage module.
The automated sample testing system is introduced in a relatively large facility where hundreds to thousands samples are processed in a day or even per hour. In such large facility, many samples are collected from one patient for multiple testing such as a biochemical test, an immunological test, a solidification test, and a hematological test. Therefore, the number of sample carriers for the hundreds to thousands patients are needed for loading into the automated sample testing system, and accordingly, a space for installing such a sample testing system is required.
For conveying the respective samples to the multiple analyzers, usually a conveying line is installed. Such a conveying line usually comprises several types of conveying such as conveying belt which are present in different line portions. Also a transport system for vessel carriers can be used as conveying lines. As the space for installing the sample testing system usually should be used in an efficient manner, the conveying line comprises line portions which are arranged one above the other. Thus, there is a need to transport a vessel carrier from one level to another level of the conveying line. A known automated sample testing system transports vessel carriers from a higher level to a lower level by inclined line portions which comprise conveyor belts.
Despite the advantages provided by the latter automated sample testing system, there are still some drawbacks. The installation of inclined line portions comprising conveyor belts involves significant costs for installation and maintenance as these line portions are based on wearing constructional members.
Therefore, there is a need for a transporting device for transporting a laboratory diagnostic vessel carrier from a first line portion to a second line portion of a conveying line, and a conveying line allowing a transport of a vessel carrier from a higher level to a lower level of a conveying line in a simple, cost-effective, and maintenance free manner.